Knight Without Armour
by nikkilittle
Summary: Tack-on ending to the video game. Think of it as an audio file that plays after the end credits have rolled. A "pure" fan fiction: as faithful as possible to canon.


Knight Without Armour

by Nikki Little

Charles died today. I feel that it is necessary to clarify certain matters before my time comes. I'm quite an old lady and do not wish to leave any loose ends behind. When I was a young girl, Charles was a perfect gentleman who treated me like a favorite daughter. I always assumed that he was simply a lonely bachelor who, for whatever reason, saw in me the child that he would like to have for himself. I think it all started because I shared his interest in chess. I found that I had a knack for the game, and as my strength in the game increased, Charles' visits became more frequent. I think he was fascinated with the idea that a girl could take such an interest in a game that was always considered an exclusively male preserve. It was unheard of for a woman to play chess. And a little girl, ... well, now that was extraordinary. By the age of 11 I was beating the high school boys as if they were ..., um, ... little girls. Charles adored me. I think he got a vicarious pleasure in watching an innocent-looking little girl in a blue dress tear through the chess team at his school. I could sense his pride. He was my teacher! When I reached the age of 11, I sometimes caught him sneaking glances at me which made me feel a bit uncomfortable, but he never said or did anything which merited reproach. I suspected it was the look of love, but he never broached the subject or gave any hint of his feelings other than the occasional sneaky glance which I'm sure he thought I never noticed. Except once. I caught him looking at me in the boat on the river one delightful summer afternoon and I splashed him. My mother was horrified and apologized for my rudeness. What I did next shocked even me. I flirted like a grown woman with him. In front of my mother, my sisters, and several other guests. Charles became most flustered. I think that is when the rumors started. It was my own fault. My mother went home and took all my letters from Charles and burned them. I never forgave her for that. My unwillingness to forgive my mother for destroying the letters became the first step toward the madness which swallowed me whole later. Guilt is a terrible thing.

And then, barely a year later, came the fire.

I don't remember anything about the fire and can only relay what Charles himself told me about it. I lost everyone in my immediate family. Everyone except Charles was afraid to even mention the fire in my presence. Only Charles was willing to talk.

It was when I walked out of the asylum and under the gate that I first noticed the ring on my finger. It was small and unobtrusive, but that green glint was unmistakable. It was an emerald. I had a letter in my hand instructing me to go to the home of my grandparents in case I was ever released. They had gone to the asylum and insisted that the letter be placed in my file to assure that no one would retain me at the asylum simply out of fear that I had no place else to go. It was to my grandparents' home that I was headed. Then I saw him sitting on a bench across the street. My childhood friend was waiting for me. I hadn't seen him in seven years. Or so I thought.

I crossed the street and sat down next to him and noticed a few faces staring out the windows of the asylum at us. Charles spoke first. I remember that conversation as if it were yesterday, word-for-word. The conversation on that bench is the most vivid memory of my entire life.

"I see you noticed your new ring. Do you like it?"

"Yes, I do," I said. "Is it a birthstone ring? I don't know what my birthstone is supposed to be."

"It's not a birthstone ring. It would have been much larger, but I was afraid someone would steal it if it were more noticeable."

"Not a birthstone ring? Then it must have something to do with the color of my eyes."

"Oh, Alice. You are going to make me do this the old-fashioned way, aren't you? You always were good at playing innocent."

Charles got off the bench and got down in front of me not on one knee, but both. I never saw it coming. I knew what was going to happen next and immediately felt dizzy. I fell off the bench right into his arms.

Charles put me back on the bench.

"I take it that this is a complete surprise to you. That is one thing I never expected. I thought you always knew. I couldn't say anything because you were too young. I did not want to do anything that might cast suspicion on you or cause anyone to question your behavior. I was willing to accept a certain amount of suspicion about my behavior, but I wanted to keep you untainted by wagging tongues. Let them talk about me, but never about you."

"So it's an engagement ring," I said. "I haven't seen you in around seven years. You just show up suddenly and propose."

"So you don't remember anything about the fire or what came after?"

"Well, I remember some things," I said. "And I remember a lot of things that I would rather forget."

"Did anyone tell you what shape you arrived at the hospital in?"

"No. No one ever told me and I don't remember anything between the fire and the beginning of my nightmares. I remember vivid, horrible nightmares in which I was trapped in this perverted, nasty version of the Wonderland that you wrote of in your third book."

"There is now a fourth book," said Charles. "And you wrote it."

Charles gave me the book. Like his first gift to me, this one was completely handwritten and hand-illustrated. It was over 400 pages and full of gothic, nightmarish illustrations. It was all there. All my nightmares. All my madness. He knew everything. How could he? How could he know?

"After the fire, you showed up at the hospital with blisters on at least a third of your body. Your hands were the worst. It was obvious that you had tried to open a door that had a fire behind it. Probably the door to your parents' bedroom. You had blisters up to your elbow and all over your legs. You were a mess. There is no doubt in my mind. You tried to get to your parents. It was impossible. No one could have done more. The snow on the ground that night saved you. If it hadn't been for the snow, your burns would have been so severe that you would have probably died from infection. Your neighbors took you to the hospital. Everyone there knew who you were, but no one knew where any of your relatives lived. Everyone knew that you were the girl who inspired the books. They came and got me. And then I sent for your grandparents."

"From the ages of twelve to seventeen you were completely nonfunctional. Stiff as a board. You were transferred to the Rutledge Asylum. The nurses would hold a mirror in front of your face to make sure you were still breathing. Then, on your eighteenth birthday, a nurse went through your box of belongings and brought to you your only possession which survived the fire. She brought you your stuffed white rabbit. You immediately started having nightmares. You started babbling in your sleep. Fantastic descriptions of a malevolent Wonderland more detailed than anything I had ever written. It was as if you had fallen into a dark, hellish version of my third book. I came every night and took notes. I wrote down as much as I could and drew illustrations because I was afraid I would forget. It became apparent that you had split into three personalities: Alice the self-pitying dreamer, the cruel and sadistic Queen of Hearts, and the monstrous Red Queen who had no feelings at all and was simply a ruthless machine-like beast who treated people purely as things and evaluated them according to their usefulness. The Red Queen was by far the strongest personality. Even the Queen of Hearts was only a shadow compared to the Red Queen. You, Alice the self-pitying dreamer, were the weakest of the three personalities. You broke my heart. You became something in your nightmares that I did not recognize. Wonderland became the mirror image of your soul. Your guilt over the death of your parents -- which was not your fault -- consumed you. It grew like cancer. It swallowed you. You lost your capacity to feel."

"Are you sure you want to marry a girl who is so obviously crazy?"

"Was crazy," said Charles. "A remarkable thing happened. Your weakest personality started a war in your own head. You, the self-pitying dreamer that I thought had given up, started to fight back. I wept with joy the night that I realized that you had killed your first card guard. I started to hope that you might someday defeat the Red Queen and become the girl you used to be -- the sweet innocent who was so sensitive to the pain of others. For a full year I sat at your bedside every night and scribbled like crazy. I followed your progress from the first battles with card guards to the fight with the Duchess. I was most amused one night when you lied to the White King about not being a player. If only he had known that you are Paul Morphy in a skirt! Then one night you nailed the Mad Hatter. I thought that would never happen. He knew all your deepest fears. You're the bravest person I know. You didn't know that your nightmares were just dreams. You thought they were real. Instead of running and hiding like any rational person would do, you fought back in a battle with hopeless odds. You died at least a hundred times in your nightmares. And the next night you were back again.

Charles got back down in front of me on both knees again. I couldn't help thinking that his opinion of me was far higher than I deserved. A voice shouted from a window in the asylum, "Say yes you fool! You're crazy if you don't!" Now that made me smile, coming as it did from an insane asylum. I looked up and now saw that the face of nearly every person in the asylum, patient and staff alike, was pressed against the barred windows. "I knew that you and that Red Queen could not both survive. One of you had to die. Finally I now have back the Alice that I always loved."

When Charles made his comment that the Red Queen and I could not both survive, I finally recognized who was on both knees before me. My beloved, ragged, mangy Cheshire Cat. My Guide. My Knight Without Armour. He was on his knees in front of me begging me to become his wife.

"Yes."

The End

This story is based on the characters created by American McGee. Electronic Arts (EA) holds the rights.


End file.
